Tuesday 28 December 2010

Killing the Whale Shark!


We did it! We killed the Whale Shark! Clearly, the biggest achievement a guild can accomplish, and I do mean biggest. There were many corpse runs and, amazingly, one of our tanks who had joined in the kill survived a hit (through Shield Wall plus a block) - only one hit, though. He didn't make it through the next hit.

For those of you looking to get your kill (and achievement - From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee), here's how to do it!

While you could solo it, you'll likely have best luck doing it in a group (it won't take as long, at least). You'll definitely need to kite him, staying between 5 and 20 yards the entire time. 5 yards will keep you from getting eaten, but if you go beyond 20 yards he'll disengage and evade away. Conveniently for your DPS, swimming 20 yards away should reset threat as you'll drop combat. For your kiter, an addon that shows range would be very useful to ensure you remain in that range. There are specific addons that will check range, and others that have it as a built-in option (IceHUD has one). Have a look around Curse or WoWInterface for some of the range check addons. To kite him, simply swim backwards, keeping him in that range.

For DPS, you can swim alongside him and pew pew, but keep a close eye on your threat - if he turns to bite you, you're done! You won't need any healers for this as anyone who gets nommed on will be dead. You will find you have some Line of Sight issues as well, so you need to position yourself at the right height alongside or in front of him. The line seemed to be about in line with his mouth.

Good luck!


In other news, we got our first heroic kill last night, Halfus Wyrmbreaker! The most difficult part seemed to be Halfus' last 50%, as he does a Roar every 30 seconds which does a knockdown to the raid which is both annoying and difficult to heal through. I think I preferred his bonestorm-esque whirlwinding from Beta! It seems they've taken that out completely, though. We ended up BoPing myself, our other druid, and then a priest for each stun to pop Tranq/Tranq/Hymn, which helped us get the raid through that phase, and also rotated cooldowns on the tanks (who were still tanking Halfus and the dragons through the knockdowns).

The screenshot above was only remembered after we had started to clear the trash on the way to Theralion and Valiona, so no corpse there, but here's a little achievement shot to go along with it.


We managed to get Nefarian and Al'akir down on 10s as well to keep our progression up through the holiday attendance lull (all other kills on 25 though), so I think this week we may try some more hardmodes and also finish up those two kills on 25 to round that out. Some good progression so far, which should pick up even more once the holiday season wraps up!


In fun news, the bug with the stone drake models is actually pretty excellent with the Sandstone Drake, as it looks like you're carrying your prey off to your lair! Works especially well with gnomes (as above).

Still digging for my Tyrande's Favourite Doll trinket, 119 Night Elf artifacts (and 6/7 rares) solved and still no luck! Just have to keep telling myself 'It'll be the next one...'

Back to digging!

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